Everyday Tourist's 2024 Best Flaneur Finds

In 2024, I took 8,000+ photographs while flaneuring the streets, alleys, pathways, plazas and parks of Calgary and other cities and towns I have visited. I thought it would be fun to share the “best” 24 flaneur finds of 2024 with you. Feel free to let me know which ones are your favourites.

FYI: Read to the end to find a fun flaneur tip!

Dancing Pig in High River. Too much fun!

An elementary school yard fence with just one love lock. Puppy Love?

Small children hidding in Calgary’s newest major sculpture “Spirit of Water” on the plaza of the BMO convention centre.

A playful art installation hidden in a narrow gap between buildings in Okotoks. I am sucker for colour.

Surreal light show on 10th Ave NW in Calgary’s funky Kensington Village.

Every workplace needs a sign like this one. Okotoks, AB.

There are 1,000s of brass survey monuments embedded in the pathway at the southern base of the Peace bridge aka West Eau Claire Park. I just happened to look down and found this one.

London Ontario is great for street photography.

Wonder what “Almost” means? Another fun London, ON street find.

Imagine having this sign staring at you every day. Sunalta, Calgary

I wonder what the magpie in the alley thinks of the pigeon on the head of this women out for a walk along my street. Sometimes you don’t even have to leave the house to find something fun.

I belong to a Brutalist architecture group on FaceBook. This was a fund find on the side of Huntington Hills school. So much nicer than a black wall.

Love this collection of bird houses we discovered on one of our alley walks. Renfrew, Calgary.

Parkdale’s Pet Fest in Calgary is a fun for both the pets and owners.

Front yard snow hearts, West Hillhurst, Calgary.

Wandering Calgary’s +15 elevated walkway in the downtown I found these two sculptures with some mysterious red marking on the sidewalk and human on the phone, makes for an interesting urban narrative.

Backstory: This is Sadko (red) and Kabuki (yellow) by Sorel Etrog.  The story goes Etrog found an eye screw on a street in Toronto, that inspired him to think about the possibilities of using nuts, bolts, and screw eyes as a new means of expressing the increasing mechanization of humanity. It always amazes me where artists get their inspiration from.

Loved this mid-century modern gate/door to a house in Palm Springs.

The Albertni condo entrance park, plaza, pubic art in Vancouver was an amazing find.. Learn more: 24 fun flaneur finds in Vancouver.

Words to live by…this mural can be found on a house/office along Kensington Road not far from our house.

Found these University of Calgary students engaging with Kate Ohe’s artwork that wobbles as you push it around. I’ve often thought we should have artists designing playgrounds across the city.

In 2024 Caglary branded itself as the “Blue Sky City” as we often enjoy have big, bold and beautiful skies. I love this photo as it reminded me for some reason of surrealist artist Rene Magritte’s cloud paintings.

Love this video art wall next to the 1st Street LRT Station in downtown Calgary. You never know what art you will find and it keeps changing. What I find most intriguing is the fact that people walking by or waiting at the station seem to ignore it.

Another fun flaneur find was this sign at the entrance to the parking garage in downtown Palm Springs. Not sure I have ever seen "Free Unlimited Parking” before. Makes you want to stay all day.

New Year’s Eve in Vancouver. It is chaos on Granville Street. Everyone is having fun.

“Fun Flaneur Find Tip”

When flaneuring I am always on the lookout for “Little Free Libraries” as you never know what books you will find. FYI: You can cheat and search for “Little Free Libraries” on Google Maps and use that as a starting point for your flaneuring adventure. In 2024, I found some amazing books, here are three examples.

Richler’s reflection on what Canada’s like in the mid 20th Century is enlightening. From Quebec separation to the decline of the Montreal Canadians, from his childhood growing up in Montreal, to Canadian Prime Ministers. In many ways, our world hasn’t changed as much as we think.

Found these two travel books by Marcello Di Cintio, a Calgary author in different Little Free Libraries months apart. The books are fascinating in WALLS he travels around the world to chat with locals about how it is like living next to border barriers and fortified walls. I had no idea how many walls there are, from the Western Sahara and Ceuta and Melilla in Spain. It is an mind-opener.

In Driven, he travels across Canada to interview taxi drivers, which results in a very unique perspective on our cities and stories of human struggles.

Just one of many interesting political cartoons.